Thanks for the feedback.

ZipSlack is working a treat for me - just set up a FAT32 partition, copy the files, boot off a floppy (under NT/W2K - the only painful part ... will have a look at ??? LILO ???. On my Win98 laptop I can just have a shortcut that restarts in DOS mode and runs linux.bat) I even got X working last night (personal first!)

The problem with the "find an old machine" routine is that I haven't got any knocking around and with a hungry nipper there isn't enough money going round to buy another box. Well, I need the money to buy Linux books to read on the train!